About Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center

The term "Nikkei" means Japanese emigrants and their descendants.

Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center a is Japanese American history museum in Portland, charged with the preservation and sharing of the history and culture of the Japanese American community. The Legacy Center opened the doors to its current home in September of
2004. The museum now has a larger exhibit space, with exhibits that highlight
Issei immigration and early life in Oregon, Nihonmachi (Japantown),
and life after Executive Order 9066, including the Portland Assembly
Center and contemporary Nikkei life.

The Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center has expanded storage for archives and historical artifacts,
a community room for public meetings and programs, and an improved library.
The current location has been made possible through the generosity of Naito
Corporation, community contributors, corporate and business donors,
and foundation grants.

The first serious effort to document the history of Oregon's Japanese
immigrants began in 1973. The "Issei Appreciation" project
led to a collection of slides documenting the achievements of the Issei (first generation)
pioneers who settled in Oregon before discriminatory laws halted further
Japanese immigration in 1924.

In 1990, the Japanese American Historical Plaza was completed at the
north end of the Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Conceived and guided by
the Oregon Nikkei Endowment, the Plaza, along with its narrative of
sculpted stones, stands as a permanent memorial to the lives of Oregon
Nikkei and their determined pursuit of liberty, equality, and justice
as American citizens.

Also in 1990, Portland hosted its first reunion of Oregon Nikkei who
lived in the state before the start of World War II. Over 900 people
attended from all over the world. The program focused on life in Japantown, a once-thriving section of Northwest Portland, where many attendees
had lived, worked, and raised families. It was here that the idea of
initiating a broad-based effort to document the story of Oregon Nikkei
was born.

In the spring of 1992, the Nikkei community marked the 50th anniversary
of the signing of Executive Order 9066. Under the authority of this
document, the military was directed to incarcerate all persons of Japanese
ancestry living along the West Coast. A half-day dramatic program recounted
the fear, grief, indignation, and bewilderment that swept through the
Nikkei community in 1942 as entire families were herded into makeshift
quarters at the Portland Assembly Center, formerly the Portland International
Livestock Exposition. An extensively-researched videotape documenting
this tragedy was also produced.

With funding from the Meyer Memorial Trust and support from the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, the Oregon Historical Society and the
Portland Nikkei community, an exhibition honoring the first Issei pioneers
in Oregon was developed in 1993.

It was while researching In This Great Land of Freedom: The Issei
Pioneers of Oregon that the Nikkei community was alarmed to find
that historical documentation relating to these early settlers was rapidly
disappearing.

Cause for even greater concern surfaced in 1995 when 700 Nikkei residents
of pre-WWII Oregon came together for a second reunion. Only five surviving
members of the original Issei who settled in Oregon attended the reunion.
Five years earlier, there were closer to 20.

The prospect of losing forever the legacy of their Issei forebears
quickly moved the community to action. A committee was formed, and work
began in earnest to locate a site for what would one day become the Oregon Nikkei
Legacy Center.

The vision for the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center was initially adopted
by the Oregon Nikkei Endowment Board in 1995. It envisioned a multi-purpose
facility where items of historical importance to Oregon Nikkei could
be preserved and where the unique character and traditions of its culture
could flourish and find expression.

By 1996 and with the help of the late Bill Naito, the committee had
located a potential site owned by the H. Naito Corporation on Northwest
Front Avenue across from the Japanese American Historical Plaza. Negotiation
for acquiring the property and bringing it up to city building codes
began, but were suspended upon the untimely death of Mr. Naito. Subsequently,
Sam Naito and the H. Naito Corporation proposed an alternative site
in Old Town on NW Second Avenue. In September of 2004, the Oregon Nikkei Legacy
Center relocated to 121 NW Second Avenue, the current home of the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center.

Mission Statements

Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center

The Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center serves as a focal point for the
preservation and sharing of the history and culture of the Japanese
American community. One of the most important chapters in the Japanese
American experience is the forced incarceration of over 110,000 persons
of Japanese descent during the Second World War. This fuels our commitment
to the preservation of civil rights for all Americans. The Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center is a venue for cultural and research activities and an invaluable resource
for the exploration of the experiences of Japanese Americans and their
role in Oregon's multi-cultural community.

Oregon Nikkei Endowment

The mission of the Oregon Nikkei Endowment is to preserve and honor the history and culture of Japanese Americans in the Pacific Northwest, to educate the public about the Japanese American experience during World War II, and to advocate for the protection of civil rights for all Americans.

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Collections
The Legacy Center has a wealth of resources documenting Japanese American history and culture, housing original manuscripts, government documents and publications, as well as historical and contemporary artifacts and photographs.

Friends of Oregon Nikkei Endowment
Your support will help to ensure that the history, art and culture of the Nikkei are preserved and shared with the community for generations to come.